Spanish GP: Toyota Friday practice notes

Panasonic Toyota Racing began its preparations for the Spanish Grand Prix
with three hours of Friday practice under sunny skies at the Circuit de
Catalunya. Last week's test at the same Barcelona track was interrupted by
rain on two days out of...

Panasonic Toyota Racing began its preparations for the Spanish Grand Prix
with three hours of Friday practice under sunny skies at the Circuit de
Catalunya. Last week's test at the same Barcelona track was interrupted by
rain on two days out of four but track temperatures today approached 50°
Celsius. Similar good weather is expected to continue for the rest of the
race weekend.

The test here gave most teams a head start on set-up but there
was still work to do today. Race drivers Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli
had a productive morning and set quick times. But the afternoon was
disrupted by mechanical problems and the pair ended the second session with
the 17th and 18th fastest times respectively. The team will now analyse the
data collected as it prepares for tomorrow's qualifying and Sunday's race.

Ralf Schumacher:

"We had a good morning but we had some mechanical problems during the
second session that we needed to sort out before we could continue our
programme. That cost us a bit of time but generally we went through most of
our plan and looked at the things we wanted to. So in the end it was not
much of a problem and hopefully we will have a good day tomorrow. We had a
positive test here last week and I made some progress with setting up the
car to my liking. It seems to be working well again so I remain hopeful of
an improvement."

Jarno Trulli:

"That was a solid day's work but as usual at Barcelona the wind made things
difficult out there. All the teams have made a big effort for the first
European race so this weekend we'll get a clearer idea of what direction the
championship is taking. Barcelona is a good reference circuit and our car behaved well at last week's
test here. But everyone was running different programmes today so we will
have to wait for tomorrow to find out where we all stand. I hope we can
continue our run of good results and make the points again."

Dieter Gass - Chief Engineer Race and Test:

"Like most teams we have come
here with a major aerodynamic upgrade including new wings, engine cover and
floor. We had quite a promising session this morning, making it very
smoothly through our programme and setting some competitive lap times. But
we struggled a bit in the afternoon session with both cars."

"This is partly
because we were concentrating on long run preparation for the race but we
also had some mechanical issues on the car which we have to look into.
Nevertheless, we have collected all the data we need about the tyres and
based on our morning performance we are confident for the rest of the
weekend."